Gasification systems have been used for power generation by converting biomass fuel sources into combustible gases that contain nearly all of the energy of the biomass. The gasification systems convert carbonaceous materials, such as coal, biomass, biofuel, carbon dioxide, hydrogen and petroluem, into charcoal, wood-oils, and tars using both combustion and pyrolysis with a controlled amount of oxygen or steam. The gasification systems produce syngas, which is used as a fuel within engines, such as internal combustion engines and turbine engines. Syngas may be combusted at higher temperatures than other fuels courses, thereby making internal combustion of syngas potentially more efficient than other fuel sources.
A challenging aspect of using gasification systems for power generation from waste fuel sources is efficiently producing power while handling the waste products developed within the systems. The highly efficient method of converting syngas to electric power is offset by power consumption in waste fuel preprocessing and gas cleaning. The gasification byproducts including tars must be filtered from the syngas before the syngas can be burned in an engine, otherwise, the life of the engine will be greatly shortened.